I know several very conservative people that believe all government buildings, or ones that receive any government funding, should be featureless concrete rectangles with no other whatsoever.
So i didn’t know what this dude’s talking about .
As if you can equate an architectural style to a political philosophy.
I would rather have a shitty roof over my head than no roof.
I would kill to live in a brezhnevka.
Alterlaa in Vienna
Those things were created as alternative to substandard housing. My problem is, we dont see them as wellfare housing but the “new normal”. Industry relies too hard on ppl living in those and paying too low wages.
Also, i dont care about visuals here but growing up in one of those, there’s too little free space for human worthy life. Playgrounds covered in trash, srynges, dogpoop. Anything with grass covered in dogpoop. Sketchy people trying to snatch children being a daily occurance.
Its just too many people in one place. Not a left/right problem though.
Also, i dont care about visuals here but growing up in one of those, there’s too little free space for human worthy life. Playgrounds covered in trash, srynges, dogpoop. Anything with grass covered in dogpoop. Sketchy people trying to snatch children being a daily occurance.
This sounds like a maintenance/cops issue. Especially when people are crammed in and there’s so little green space, ya can’t cut corners on things like cops and firemen and ambulances.
Especially when people are crammed in and there’s so little green space, ya can’t cut corners on things like cops and firemen and ambulances.
And add social workers and spaces to consume drugs to take care of the srynges, and Karens to take care of the bad dog owners. The wrong people profit from a war on drugs.
Criminalised homelessness that enslaves you in the prison system
So American Homelessness…
A further “bonus” is that once you get a conviction on record it makes it even harder to get out of homelessness by not only making it incredibly difficult to get a job but also any place you might rent that does a background check.
It’s a vicious cycle of worse and worse outcomes.
I was homeless for 8 years (January actually marked 8 years being in my apartment) and I saw that cycle constantly.
Same comrade…so many amazing people I’ve known are either dead or locked up for extended sentences because of that cycle. We were the rarities that actually made it out!
@plyth@feddit.org would argue that, luxury appartments lead to affordable appartements - eventually.
True, as long as the market is competitive and people can’t make money by holding appartments. So it may be necessary to use vacant home taxes like Amsterdam.
Anything that creates supply is good. Luxery appartments make people move out of other appartments. Supply increases, rents go down.
But of course, to quickly build enough appartments for everybody and bring rent down to 25% of costs of living, or even 5%, is even better. https://feddit.org/post/34635067/14682965
the first fallacy is that this was “left-wing” architecture.
It was just boring architecture from Russia, built rapidly during a time of extreme homelessness. And it addressed that problem more than fatcat hate.
Everything they don’t like is left wing. Their brain doesn’t function beyond that.
More specifically this is hierarchist architecture
There are far better options for visually pleasant housing than these Soviet Union era blocks.
Like, seeing so many of these in Poland or other post-Soviet countries is just sad. They’re grey, neglected, and the people who are forced to choose them don’t have any other option.
We could have affordable housing that has some proper aesthetics. Just got to take care of the real estate developer mafias around the world first.
It would be relatively cheap and easy to retrofit them with moss/fern panel facades or other types of plants. Improves the visual appeal while also contributing to cleaner air and cooler temperatures, and creating food/habitat for wildlife.
There’s really no reason not to do it.
Don’t ferns take a lot of maintenance effort? Moss too, though perhaps to prevent it from invading other parts of the structure
Yes, but then where would we get depressing propaganda pictures to frighten people who are curious about socioeconomic systems other than giving rich people whatever they want.
Easy, just use GenAI (/s)
They also have an accessibility issue because anything 5 stories or less does not have an elevator and smaller cities would often build tons of those 5 story ones, meaning all the cheap-ish apartments are 4th or 5th floor.
I’ve seen a few here in Estonia that went through renovations to become much nicer than new, but you’re still stuck with some things structurally that aren’t all great and despite kredex funding assistance, most of those buildings are stuck with 10-25 year loans after those renovations, making them a bit more expensive to live in.
And they don’t necessarily solve homelessness anyway. For example in the US there are significantly more vacant homes than homeless people.
Homeless people need a lot more help than just a roof over their heads. In places where they don’t allow drunk people in shelters and there are winters, they have homeless people in the summer, but not necessarily in the winter when it’s too cold to be drinking outside. Mental health issues tend to be a large factor in someone becoming permanently homeless vs temporarily due to financial difficulties (the latter often means couchsurfing till you get a new job, etc). And being surrounded by commie blocks can’t be good for your mental health, they definitely make me feel depressed and I’m glad I’ve never had to live in one.
Fuck these old commie blocks, we can do better without significantly worse costs per unit.
I’d posit a lot of homeless issues can start from just not having a hub to safely have things stored, and build a sense of safety. I look at the carts the homeless move around, and it looks like hoarding until I realize it’s less than a tenth of the stuff in my home I wouldn’t want to part with.
Homeless people need a lot more help than just a roof over their heads
Sure, but it’s a lot easier to deal with many of those issues when you don’t have to also worry about having a roof over your head.
That’s in part because they are far past their original designed lifespan, as these were meant to give everyone a house. Despite their other egregious excesses, the Soviets at least said they believed in housing as a human right, and implemented policies to that effect. Not only for building housing at record rates with innovative prefab construction, but also for upkeep of those buildings.
That is in stark contrast to the radical chicago school of economics “reforms” after the collapse of the soviet union, which basically created an oligarchy overnight. Those buildings were sold for pennies at private auctions to private landlords. Whole populations who used to have the security of free public housing, suddenly found themselves having to rent the house they have always lived in. Meanwhile those landlords never have nor will invest anything in upkeep, which likely accelerated the deterioration of these buildings significantly.
I do agree social housing should if possible be beautiful. However, the first concern should always be to build enough of it so everyone who wants housing can get it. Most of the western world is in a deep housing crisis, so IMO any social housing is beautiful.
I’m pretty sure a lot of the people mocking socialist architecture became really quiet when a data center was dropped next to their suburb.
Go to the poor neighborhood in in city in america and its just as sad. Go to a poor rural area and it’s worse.
I would rather have a few boring tall buildings and lots of nature than lots of single family homes and way less nature.
The rich folk use them for their “hook-ups”. It’s like motels by the hour that the lower-middle class use.
“People in America really will spend $5,000 on a sweater. No piece of clothing should cost $5,000. You know what should cost $5,000? A car. And you know who should build that car? The same people that currently build $500,000 cars. The best and most talented among us should do the work that benefits the most amount of people for what good is everything to everyone who can’t afford it”
Kanye West
classic case of a broken clock being right twice a day
Before he completely lost it he was a super good dude that use to preach a lot of really good messages
Said right before he dropped a $245 pair of goddamned sneakers…
He wanted his shoes to be affordable but nobody would let him do it
He was trying to make an entire Yeezy fashion brand that unlike other celebrity sponsored clothes was going to be affordable so that kids could actually afford it
But the companies that did work with him wouldn’t let him have full control like he wanted so the shoes were limited run, pricy, etc… and eventually he kind of had to do it himself which means it had to be expensive. It was his dream to build it up so that he could make $30 T-Shirts and $60 shoes
But Bipolar is a real bitch and well, without his medicine, he pretty much just lost his mind
…
And… you actually believe that? That he couldn’t find a company to make his sneakers but for cheaper than Nike?yeah, it was a pretty big deal at the time
He wasn’t an athlete so no clothing or shoe company came to him, he just wanted to do it and was approaching them. To which they basically said, “you’re a rapper not a fashion designer”. While they were OK putting his name on shoes, they weren’t OK with letting him take control and set the price points and stuff
I’m sorry, I was unclear. The part where Nike didn’t give up creative or manufacturing (or distribution) control is totally believable - the part I’m struggling to find credible is that he couldn’t then find anyone willing to agree to manufacture shoes to his specs and then let him arrange for distribution. That’s… just not how that works. Donald “the rapist” Trump can figure out how to do that, but Ye couldn’t?
I can totally believe nobody came to him about it, but all that means is he didn’t want to work with a generic brand he approached. It would have been almost trivial to solve the problem if he were serious about an affordable clothing brand, rather than a trendy clothing brand.
I don’t know all of the details but I do remember him pushing this hard… going on talk shows, going on the radio, etc… and nobody would bite
He kept telling the story about how he use to just make beats and nobody would believe he could rap. Now he’s a big rapper trying to make fashion and nobody believes he can do it. In fact I believe this is when he got in that big fight on the radio with the DJs
So the story was always that he wanted to make a Yeezy brand of clothes and shoes but keep the price low so that kids could afford it, but nobody wanted to work with him. Sounds like they were happy to slap his name on expensive clothes but not cheap stuff; and nothing long-term, short-term limited run type of thing
I’m not Kanye or an executive at Nike so I don’t have all the details, but that is what he was preaching at the time
Kanye was a good dude. But he’s Bipolar and he doesn’t take his medicine so he’s crazy as shit now
Okay look, I’m sorry, but he was lying. Just straight up, he was full of shit. What he is describing being unable to find is called called DFMA or Private Label Manufacturing - and I’m failing to think up an industry where its more common than footwear (probably electronics). It is completely the norm in shoe manufacturing and it has been for decades.
What it sounds like is he didn’t want “cheap Yeezys the kids could afford”, he wanted “cheap nike Yeezys kids could afford”. And while Nike will do collabs, they absolutely do not do PL/DFMA. The most charitable read is that he wanted to bring the prestigious brands to the masses and like… good fantasy, but it would have been damn near trivial for him to find someone to make the shoes for much lower prices, which begs the question why didn’t he?
And, as someone with Bipolar 1 too, I can tell you that going off your meds doesn’t turn you into someone with a consistent message. Individual incidents could be excused, except they’re all the same thing - he’s had state dinners with trump, has claimed to be a nazi, denies the holocaust and went to the fuckin’ wall to defend his “brother” (no, he clarified he meant it like they were siblings) Diddy. No dude, he’s been a bastard for years, and he’s just had a great PR team.
There are no good billionaires, and if there were, Kanye “Bill Cosby Is Innocent!!!” ([2015](https://www.cnn.com/2016/02/10/entertainment/kanye-west-bill-cosby-innocent-tweet/)) West sure as hell wouldn’t be one of them.
Shaq already paved the way to do that. Kanye could have easily followed a similar path.
Shaq was an athlete so companies approached him
Kanye was a rapper who was reaching out to shoe companies with an idea
Shaq approached Payless Shoes to launch his own brand instead of extending his contract with Reebok. That’s why Shaq shoes were only $40.
I’m not Kanye or an executive so I don’t have all the details but…
At the time Kanye was doing this entire publicity tour about how he wanted to launch a low-cost fashion line. $30 T-Shirts, $60 shoes. Things kids could actually afford
But then it turned into him going around to TV shows and Radio programs talking about how nobody wants to let him do this. I believe this is when he got in a big fight on air with the DJs of some big show.
So it’s not like this was a one time remark he said, he tried this for a long time; constantly comparing his struggles to him becoming a rapper. How everyone wanted to buy his beats but nobody would let him record an album. “You just make beats” they said. Then he finally got to make an album and it’s an overnight classic. And then he did it again, and again, and again
Now he wants to do fashion and they say, “You just rap, you don’t do fashion”. But just how he became a great rapper he was positive he could make a great fashion line if someone, anyone, would give him the chance
Eventually he had to make the limited-time, high quality shit he made… with the goal of earning enough, making a name for himself, to launch the lower-cost line he always dreamed of
But somewhere between then and now he had a massive manic episode and apparently never took his medicine. So now he’s just out there, manic as shit, doing and saying whatever crazy shit pops into his head
I can’t buy that he was that helpless. Jay Z or Damian Dash might not have wanted him to undercut their business but it shouldn’t have stopped him. As I said, Shaq already showed the way.
